Battery draining smartphone apps

If you have a smartphone, you know its batteries need charging a lot more frequently than in the pre-smartphone days.

But did you know that they exact same smartphone can have very different battery life ...all depending on what you've put on it?

Battery Draining Apps

Why is it you have to charge your iPhone or Droid every day, when the person next to you at work can go 3 days between charges? It may be because you're running battery-draining apps.

The CEO of Motorola recently blamed power hungry apps for short battery life on Droid phones.

So what can you do?

• Download an app such as "Spare Parts" for Android phones that finds your power hogs.
• Be especially wary of game apps: some run all the time.
• Turn off bluetooth and GPS if you don't use them.
• Dim the screen.

Doesn't That Stink?

And from the doesn't that stink file, the biggest power hog on many smartphones: your email.

Every time your phone pings, or checks an email server, it is running down the battery.

If your phone checks email every 10 minutes, you can run down your battery in less than 12 hours. Doesn't that stink?

So adjust your phone's email settings: you can turn off email pinging. "Push" email uses less power, but even that can be a drain too.

The worst drain is when you have multiple email accounts, where your phone is checking new emails every few minutes. Set some of them, that you use the least,  to check for email only when you open your inbox.

That way you save the battery and you don't waste your money.

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